Survival Guide: The Payoff

The Payoff

My team
members are from across the world—Ukraine, Germany, Italy, the U.S.—but
often we don’t have anyone from
the Arabian Peninsula, where we
dig for evidence of ancient humans.
So during our first year in the field,
before I’d learned Arabic and there
was Google Earth to help, I took on a
local Bedouin guide. When I asked his
fee, he responded, “We are brothers.
It is my joy to take you around these
places.” With a field budget of about
$12,000 that had to cover equipment,
car rental, and fuel, plus food and
housing for eight men, I was more
than happy to believe him.

Three days later, when it came
time to part ways, he asked how much
I was planning to pay him. I had no
clue what he expected or what was
considered fair, so I hesitantly offered
the equivalent of around $50 a day.
I’ll never forget the look on his face—something between crestfallen and
furious. I hadn’t factored in that we
work in the heart of Oman’s petroleum
industry, so the locals are used to
being paid by oil companies, not tiny
archaeological survey projects. I saw
the whole summer of fieldwork at risk.
To make matters more complicated,
we had found incredible archaeology
at the site he’d taken us to. He
thought it was worth some money.

What alternatives did I have?
Perhaps I would be put in prison for
not paying. He ushered us into the
car and began driving full speed back
to his village. There his father, the
sheikh, ordered me to pay $100 a day
and buy a goat for $100 to celebrate
the success of our project. I paid,
they slaughtered, all feasted. We
got out of there. These days we are
mostly looking for caves, where
sediments and stone tools are best
preserved. The locals avoid the caves
at all costs: They think jinn, or demon
spirits, live in there. Fine by us.